Liquid containment system

ABSTRACT

There is provided a liquid containment system that includes a flexible balloon bladder having a holding capacity of holding at least 300 gallons of liquid. The bladder has at least one opening through which liquids are pumped into or out of the bladder. A support structure surrounds and provides lateral support to the bladder.

FIELD

There is described a liquid containment system, this system was developed for use in the oil industry for holding large volumes of water required for a process known as “fracing,” but it will be appreciated it could be used for other applications.

BACKGROUND

Canadian Patent Application No. 2,756,305 (Hindbo) entitled “Modular Enclosure System” describes an enclosure that can be rapidly deployed at remote sites. In the oil industry, liners are supported by the walls of the enclosure for liquid containment. There will now be described an alternative liquid containment system.

SUMMARY

There is provided a liquid containment system that includes at least one flexible balloon bladder having a holding capacity of at least 300 gallons of liquid. The at least one bladder has at least one opening through which liquids are pumped into or out of the at least one bladder. A support structure surrounds and provides lateral support to the bladder.

Consideration was given to the use of large bladders for liquid containment and, at first, it appeared that the idea was unworkable. The reason for this is that as a height of a bladder increases the hydrostatic pressure of the liquid column increases and the bladder becomes increasingly unstable. The liquid containment system, described above, overcomes the inherent instability of the large bladders by providing a surrounding support structure. The term “large” can be a relative term. In the context of the types of applications intended, the bladder should be considered “large” when it has a holding capacity of at least 300 gallons of liquid. To provide a better indication as to actual size, the liquid containment system currently under construction has a circular support structure with a diameter of 72 feet, a height of 12 feet and a holding capacity of 792,500 gallons. It will be appreciated that the support structure need not be circular and could be made multi-sided, most likely square or rectangular.

Once the basic concept of the liquid containment system was developed, problems of transport to remote sites had to be addressed. For transport, a plurality of panels are transported in a disassembled state and then assembled on site to form the support structure and the bladder is transportable in a folded state on a skid. It is preferred that the skid have sidewalls which enclose the skid to form a shipping container for transport. The sidewalls are movable or removable on site to facilitate access to the bladder. Preferably, the sidewalls are hinged to the skid and can simply be folded down flat.

A second problem that had to be addressed was ease of access to the contents of the bladder. For this purpose, at least one conduit extends externally of the support structure for making a fluid flow connection with the bladder. With the skid being used to transport the bladder, it was realized that the at least one conduit could be incorporated into the skid. According to this aspect of the preferred embodiment, the skid has a first portion and a second portion. Then at least one conduit extends through the skid with a first connection at a first end of the at least one conduit positioned in the first portion and a second connection at a second end of the at least one conduit positioned in the second portion. During installation, the skid is positioned underlying at least one of the plurality of panels of the support structure with the first portion of the skid positioned within the enclosure and the second portion of the skid positioned outside the enclosure. This enables the bladder to be connected to the first connection with the second connection being positioned externally of the support structure for making a fluid connection with the bladder.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features will become more apparent from the following description in which reference is made to the appended drawings, the drawings are for the purpose of illustration only and are not intended to be in any way limiting, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation view of the liquid containment system.

FIG. 2 is a transparent perspective view of the liquid containment system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a detailed perspective view of a skid structure of the liquid containment system of FIG. 1, with sidewalls lowered.

FIG. 4 is a transparent perspective view of the liquid containment system of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the liquid containment system of FIG. 3, with sidewalls raised.

FIGS. 6 a-6 h is a series of top plan views showing sequential folding of a bladder to fit onto the skid illustrated in FIGS. 3-5.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of an alternative embodiment of liquid containment system.

FIG. 8 is a top plan view of the liquid containment system of FIG. 7.

FIG. 9 is a perspective view of panels of the liquid containment system of FIG. 7, prepared for transport.

FIG. 10 is a front elevation view of a panel of the liquid containment system of FIG. 7, to which a bladder is adhered for the purpose of ease of transport and ease of deployment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A liquid containment system generally identified by reference numeral 10, will now be described with reference to FIGS. 1-6 h. An alternative embodiment, generally identified by reference numeral 100, will be described with respect to FIG. 7 through FIG. 10.

Structure and Relationship of Parts:

Referring to FIG. 1, liquid containment system 10 includes a flexible balloon bladder 12. This is a “large” bladder that has a holding capacity of at least 300 gallons of liquid. Bladder 12 has four openings through which liquids are pumped into or out of bladder 12. The four opening are not shown in this view and will be hereinafter described. Referring to FIG. 1, a support structure, generally indicated by reference numeral 16, surrounds and provides lateral support to bladder 12. Support structure 16 has a diameter of 72 feet, a height of 12 feet and a holding capacity of 792,500 gallons.

Referring to FIG. 2, support structure 16 was developed with a view to moving liquid containment system 10 to remote sites. For transport, a plurality of panels 18 are transported in a disassembled state and then assembled on site to form support structure 16. The manner of securing panels 18 together to form an enclosure is known and will, therefore, not be further described. Referring to FIG. 6 h, bladder 12 is transportable in a folded state on a skid 20. Referring to FIG. 5, it is preferred that skid 20 have sidewalls 22 which enclose skid 20 to form a shipping container for transport. Referring to FIG. 3 and FIG. 6 g, it is also preferred that sidewalls 22 be movable or removable on site to facilitate access to bladder 12. In the illustrated embodiment, sidewalls 22 are hinged to skid 20 and can simply be folded down flat.

Referring to FIG. 2, conduit 24, 26, 20, and 30 extend externally of support structure 16 for the purpose of making a fluid flow connection with bladder 12. Referring to FIGS. 3 and 5, with skid 20 being used to transport bladder 12, it was realized that conduit 24, 26, 28 and 30 could be incorporated into skid 20. Although skid 20 is illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 5 without bladder 12 being shown, it must be understood that it is intended that bladder be secured with adhesive to skid 20, so it is not removable. Referring to FIG. 4, skid 20 has a first portion 32 to which a portion of bladder 12 is secured and a second portion 34 which does not have any portion of bladder 12 secured to it. Each of conduit 24, 26, 28, and 30 has a first end 24 a, 26 a, 28 a, and 30 a and a second end 24 b, 26 b, 28 b and 30 b. Each of conduit 24, 26, 28, and 30 extend through skid 20. Bladder 12 has four openings through which fluids can pass, identified by first connection box 36, second connection box 38, third connection box 40 and fourth connection box 42. First connection box 38 connects first end 24 a of conduit 24 with bladder 12 and has a first extension line 44 that extends into bladder 12. Second connection box 40 connects first end 26 a of conduit 26 with bladder 12 and has a second extension line 46 that extends into bladder 12. Third connection box 42 connects first end 28 a of conduit 28 with bladder 12. Fourth connection box 42 connects first end 30 a of conduit 30 with bladder 12. Referring to FIGS. 3 and 5, each of second ends 24 b, 26 b, 28 b, and 30 b of conduit 24, 26, 28, and 30 are attached to connection manifolds 24 c, 26 c, 28 c, and 30 c, respectively. Referring to FIG. 4, first end 24 a, 26 a, 28 a, and 30 a of each conduit 24, 26, 28, and 30 are positioned in first portion 32 of skid 20. Second end 24 b, 26 b, 28 b, and 30 b of each conduit 24, 26, 28, and 30 are positioned in second portion 34 of skid 20. Referring to FIG. 2, during installation, skid 20 is positioned underlying one of panels 18 of support structure 16 with first portion 32 of skid 20 positioned within the enclosure defined by support structure 16 and second portion 34 of skid 20 positioned outside enclosure defined by support structure 16. This enables bladder 12 to be connected to connection boxes 38, 40, 42, and 44 with connection manifolds 24 c, 26 c, 28 c, and 30 c being positioned externally of support structure 16 to facilitate making fluid connections with bladder 12.

Operation:

The manner of installation and operation of liquid containment system 10 will now be described. Referring to FIG. 6 h, skid 20 is transported to a remote site with bladder 12 secured in position and folded. During transport, sidewalls 22 of skid 20 are up as shown in FIG. 5. Referring to FIG. 6 g, sidewalls 22 are lowered to provide access to bladder 12 for the purpose of unfolding it, as shown in FIG. 3. First extension line 44 is connected to first connection box 38 and second extension line 46 is connected to second connection box 40. Referring to FIG. 6 f, the unfolding of bladder 12 then commences as shown sequentially in FIGS. 6 e, 6 d, 6 c, 6 b, and lastly, 6 a. Referring to FIG. 2, panels 18 are assembled around bladder 12, with skid 20 positioned underlying one of panels 18 of support structure 16 with first portion 32 of skid 20 to which bladder 12 is attached positioned within the enclosure defined by support structure 16 and second portion 34 of skid 20 positioned outside enclosure defined by support structure 16. Connections are then made to connection manifolds 24 c, 26 c, 28 c and 30 c. Referring to FIG. 1, bladder 12 is then expanded using air, liquid or a combination of air and liquid. When filled with liquid, bladder is supported by support structure 16. When the need for liquid containment system 10 has passed, a fluid is removed from bladder 12. Panels 18 of support structure 16 are disassembled. Bladder 12 is then folded back onto skid 20 as shown in the sequential folding illustrated in FIG. 6 a, 6 b, 6 c, 6 d, 6 e, 6 f, 6 g, and lastly, 6 h.

Variations:

The manner of installation and operation of liquid containment system 10 will now be described. Although the preferred shape for the support structure is circular, it will be appreciated that the support structure need not be circular and could be made multi-sided, most likely square or rectangular. The critical factor is that the support structure performs its intended purpose of supporting the bladder. Although a single bladder is illustrated within the enclosure, it will be appreciated that there could be two or more bladders that press against each other and receive support from a common support structure. Although it is envisage that the support structure is a plurality of panels that can be disassembled for transport, support structure could be a fixed structure that is not intended to be moved. In a fixed installation, all or a portion of the support structure could be provided by earth. This could involve mounding up the earth, excavating into the earth or taking advantage of naturally occurring topographical features. Although four openings into the bladder have been illustrated and described, it will be appreciated that the number of openings selected will be to suit the intended application. The bladder can be made of any suitable material that can be expanded and is compatible with the liquid to be contained.

Referring to FIGS. 7-10, containment system 100 is a multi-sided body 110 consisting of a plurality of panels 112. Referring to FIG. 9, panels 112 are stacked for transport, with one of panels 112, identified by reference numeral 118, serving as a support skid for bladder 116. Bladder 116 is secured by adhesive to skid 118 and is transported in a folded condition. Referring to FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, when panels 112 are delivered on site, panels 112 are connected to form body 110. There are a plurality of connectors known in the art for connecting panels 112, so the panel connectors will not be described in detail. Referring to FIG. 9, the panel connectors illustrated are simply tongues 114 protruding from one side of panel 112 and parallel plates 115 protruding from another side of panel 112. Each of tongues 114 are inserted between one of the pairs of parallel plates 115 and a bolt dropped into aligned apertures to prevent tongues 114 from being withdrawn. The panel connectors do not need to be capable of retaining liquid, as bladder 116 will retain liquid. However, this size of bladder will be unstable in the absence of support, so body 110 plays a critical role. Referring to FIG. 10, one of panels 112 used to form body 110 is skid 118 to which bladder 116 is secured. Bladder 116 is then unfolded in preparation for use. Once substantially unfolded, continued deployment can be assisted by gas (air or nitrogen) or by liquids. There can be a single bladder 116 or two bladders confined by body 110 and each other. It will be appreciated that bladder 116 will have fittings of various kinds, such as hose connection fittings 120 to provide for hose connection and vent fittings 122 to provide for venting. Other fittings may be required, depending upon the installation.

In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be one and only one of the elements.

The scope of the claims should not be limited by the illustrated embodiments set forth as examples, but should be given the broadest interpretation consistent with a purposive construction of the claims in view of the description as a whole. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A liquid containment system, comprising: a flexible balloon bladder having a holding capacity of at least 300 gallons of liquid, the bladder having at least one opening through which liquids are pumped into or out of the bladder; and a support structure that surrounds and provides lateral support to the bladder.
 2. The liquid containment system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of panels which are transported in a disassembled state and then assembled on site to form the support structure.
 3. The liquid containment system of claim 1, wherein at least one conduit extends externally of the support structure for making a fluid flow connection with the bladder.
 4. The liquid containment system of claim 1, wherein the bladder is transportable in a folded state on a skid.
 5. The liquid containment system of claim 4, wherein the skid has sidewalls which enclose the skid to form a shipping container for transport, the sidewalls being one of movable or removable on site to facilitate access to the bladder.
 6. The liquid containment system of claim 4, wherein the skid has a first portion and a second portion, at least one conduit extending through the skid with a first connection at a first end of the at least one conduit positioned in the first portion and a second connection at a second end of the at least one conduit positioned in the second portion, the skid underlying at least one of the plurality of panels of the support structure with the first portion of the skid positioned within the enclosure and the second portion of the skid positioned outside the enclosure, the bladder being connected to the first connection and the second connection being positioned externally of the support structure for making a fluid connection with the bladder.
 7. The liquid containment system of claim 6, wherein there is more than one conduit.
 8. The liquid containment system of claim 1, wherein a portion of the bladder is secured to a skid that has at the least one flow conduit that is in fluid communication with the at least one opening in the bladder.
 9. The liquid containment system of claim 2, wherein the bladder is secured to a skid and the skid serves as one of the plurality of panels that forms the support structure. 